


Tear-Stained

by watcherofworlds



Series: Whumptober 2019 [14]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Episode: s02e21 City of Blood, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Prompt Fill, Self-Sacrifice, Whumptober, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 19:13:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21041324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watcherofworlds/pseuds/watcherofworlds
Summary: Prompt fill for Whumptober Day 14 "Tear-Stained"





	Tear-Stained

Oliver’s cheeks were tear-stained. That was the first thing Felicity noticed when she reached the bottom of the stairs and saw him sitting with his back against a concrete pillar a short distance away. He wasn’t crying now, but the marks his tears had left behind remained. Felicity felt the crust of salt on her cheeks left behind by the tears she had shed for Oliver’s sake and felt her heart ache with sorrow and empathy for him. It occurred to her in that moment, as well, that she’d never actually_ seen _ Oliver cry. She had seen the evidence left behind that he had been after Tommy died, just as she did now, but then as now by the time she actually saw Oliver himself he was silent and numb, all but dead to the world.

“How did you find me?” he asked suddenly, having apparently heard her and Dig enter the room.

“Waller,” Dig replied simply.

“We were worried about you,” Felicity put in.

“After you missed your mother’s funeral,” Dig said, concluding the thought.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t go,” Oliver said. His voice was dull and heavy with unimaginable sorrow. “I left for the cemetery, but then I ended up here.”

“And _ here _ is?” Felicity asked.

“Here was a secondary facility in case the Foundry was compromised,” Oliver explained. His voice was still dull, empty of inflection or emotion. “But it became somewhere that I could just go and... be alone.” There was a long moment where nobody spoke. All Felicity could think was that alone was the _ last _ thing Oliver should have been in the wake of everything that had just happened.

“She’s dead because of me,” Oliver said at last, breaking the silence. “Five years ago-” His voice became strained as he got to his feet, most likely because of the pain in his injured knee- “I could have cured Slade, and that would have prevented all of this. And now, all the people left that I care about, we are all in his crosshairs.” Felicity couldn’t take her eyes off of him, couldn’t tear her gaze away from the tear tracks on his face. “That ends tonight.”

“How?” Felicity asked, taking a few steps toward Oliver as he bent down to pick his suit jacket up from the ground.

“I turn myself over to Slade,” Oliver replied. “I end this... vendetta.”

“Oliver, do you really think this ends with you turning yourself over to Slade?” Dig asked.

“Yes, I do,” Oliver said. There was a pause, then he elaborated, “After she was gone... he told me that one more person had to die... and then it would end. This ends for Slade when he kills me.”

“I don’t accept that,” Felicity said, fighting down the horror she felt at his words long enough to step into his path and stop him from leaving. “You shouldn’t either. You can’t just _ accept _ things, Oliver. If I had accepted my life, I would be a cocktail waitress in Vegas like my mother, and I _ never _ would have gone to college, and I _ never _ would have moved a thousand miles away to work at Queen Consolidated, and I _ never _ would have believed some crazy guy in a hood when he told me that I could be more than just some IT girl.” There was a long silence while she stared into Oliver’s eyes, silently begging him not to leave her like this, before she added, in a near whisper, “Please don’t do this.”

“Felicity,” Oliver murmured. “Someone once told me that the essence of heroism is to die so that others can live.”

“It’s not that simple, Oliver,” Dig interjected.

“Yes, it is,” Oliver replied, turning his head to look at him. “Slade’s whole plan was to take everything from me. He did. He wins. All that’s left is for me to die.”

“No, there has to be another way,” Felicity insisted desperately, holding tightly to Oliver’s hand to keep him tethered to her as he went to leave once more. He stopped in his tracks and turned back around to face her, not speaking, and for just a moment, as he looked into her eyes, she thought he was going to kiss her.

“There isn’t,” he finally said, voice soft, and as he turned away from her once more, heading for his death, Felicity knew that that last sight she had seen of his tear-stained cheeks would be burned into her brain forever.


End file.
